1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a terminal device, which is suitable for application as a terminal device configured to be connected to, for example, servers existing on networks, and has a function of transmitting and receiving content data to/from the servers. Further, the present invention relates to a content data processing method which is applied to the terminal device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Nowadays, terminal devices, such as a mobile telephone terminal and a communication terminal, are often made to store various kinds of content data therein, such as music data and image data, has become increasingly popular. Carrying around such a terminal device while out of the house or the like enables a user of the terminal device to select and reproduce a piece of content data, corresponding to a content the user desires to watch and/or listen to, from among the content data stored therein, and enjoy the content, resulting from reproduction of the piece of content data, anywhere, anytime, in any situation and the like the user likes.
Under such conditions in which users select and watch and/or listen to contents from among content data stored in their mobile terminals that they are carrying around, sometimes, cases, in which users have to halt reproduction of content data in the middle thereof, occur. In such a case, whenever a user desires to resume reproduction of content data, it is preferable to enable the user to resume reproduction of the content data from the position at which reproduction of the content data was previously halted.
Further, these days, a mechanism, which allows a server to be connected to a network and store blocks of content data, and terminal devices to each acquire a piece of content data from among the blocks of content data stored in the server through communication with the server and reproduce the acquired piece of content data, has been realized. In general, a storage capacity of a server is significantly larger than that of a memory section included in a terminal device. Therefore, a mechanism allowing servers to each store a large amount of content data therein and terminal devices to each acquire any pieces of content data from among the content data stored in the servers through communication with the servers enables users to reproduce an amount of content data larger than an amount of content data each terminal device is capable of storing therein.
As a technical standard which enables realization of such a mechanism, for example, the digital living network alliance (DLNA) standard is well known to those skilled in the art. Utilization of devices conforming to the DLNA standard enables users to acquire various kinds of contents, such as pictures, music, and images, from servers, and watch and/or listen to the acquired contents.
However, in such a case where content data is stored in servers connected to a network, in order to resume reproduction of content data from the position at which reproduction was previously halted, users have to perform various kinds of operations.
For example, in the case where there exist a plurality of servers, which are destinations of the storage of content data, firstly, it is necessary for a user to perform processes of searching for a server in which a piece of content data targeted for reproduction is stored. Even after the server has been found, subsequently, it is necessary for the user to search for a location in the server where the piece of content data targeted for reproduction is stored, and further thereto, find a position from which the user desires to resume reproduction of the content data by performing rewinding and fast-forwarding operations and the like. That is, such a case where content data is stored in servers connected to a network leads to a disadvantage in that it takes a large amount of time and trouble for a user to achieve resumption of reproducing content data from a certain position thereof from which the user desires to continuously watch and/or listen to the content.
As a method to overcome such a disadvantage, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-66472, a technology, which enables a user using a network player configured to reproduce content data stored in servers to easily resume reproduction of music from a position at which reproduction was previously halted, is described.